I must have been led astray by that article. "For instance, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a variant of the tiny orbiting teapot used by Bertrand Russell for similar rhetorical duty back in 1952." I read as: "For instance, [his] Flying Spaghetti Monster is a variant..." since that came right after a quote where he used that analogy. Seemed original enough to me at the time I read it ... but reading arguments for atheism is something new to me (obviously).